Brew kettle options

[drdyancey]

So I’m looking to upgrade my brewing situation. I am getting a 16G SS pot and am going to install fittings on it myself. My question is should I go with weldless bulkhead setups or go with the silver solder route. All I really want is a drain and a spot to set up a whirlpool through my CFC. At some point I will probably put in a thermometer if I ever decide to do big decoctions.

My last question for this post is how big of a BTU burner is really needed. The edelmetall one says it’ll do something like 30 gallons of wort and its got 72000 BTUs, how much difference really is there with a 50K BTU burner once it has gotten to a boil. I’ve read jet burners can scorch wort potentially and hurricane vs banjo, low vs high pressure… I’m lost please help.

[nate4g63]

I have weldless fittings and welded couplers, both work great and both don’t leak. It’s really up to you on that, no different functionality between the two.

I brew electric now but still do outside brews occasionally. I have the dark star burner from here and the Blichmann. I use the dark star for my HLT and the Blichmann for the boil kettle. Both heat very fast and get the job done.

[mullerbrau]

Weldless here and very happy with them. I did them myself.

I have 25 gallon HLT and BK and I heat with natural gas: 35,000 BTU on the HLT and 58,000 on the BK. No issues with either but I do heat my HLT with a lid on which helps with the smaller burner.

[drdyancey]

Sweet thanks for the info. It seemed like weldless vs soldered was more a matter of how bored I was initially, but 200k BTU seemed a bit excessive